Campaign and new book target rising rates of obesity

With 68 percent of all adults in the United States overweight and 30.5 percent considered obese, Lisa Davis, Ph.D., a clinician at the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center and a researcher with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health along with Brad MacDonald, the chief executive of Owings Mills, Md.-based Medifast, decided it was time to let the public in on a secret they?ve known since the 1980s.

They co-authored a book they say provides a guide on how to overcome the social and emotional challenges of dieting to successfully lose weight and keep it off.